happy ammon

hennacy day...

well not exactly, but according to robert ellsburg's book "saints" today was the day that ammon came up as the day that we remember him. he died on jan. 14th which coincides with my little brother's birthday and only missed by 17 years. i write today because he is another one of my "dead heroes" (i have been asked before if i have any living heroes and the answer is yes, but that's another tale). ammon is someone that i consider a spiritual companion. he was a young radical, spent time in prison for political action and there in solitary confinement went through the beginning of his conversion, seeing others as subjects to be loved and carriers of the kingdom of god... the sermon on the mount. eventually he fell into the catholic worker movement and decided to become baptized a catholic; dorothy day was his god-mother. there with the catholic workers he organized public opposition to new york city air raid drills refusing to live in fear and refusing to assume the inevitability of war. he eventually left catholicism because he couldn't reconcile his personal radial commitment to jesus with bishops and other members of the hierarchy that supported war and what we would call today the "culture of death." and these problems still exist in the church... hypocrisy is a convienent friend in times of desperation. ammon founded a catholic worker house in salt lake city called the joe hill house and lived out his days as a christian anarchist--a follower of christ and one who "doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do." this one man revolution believed that the revolution of god must begin in every individual and then invite others, sometimes with one's actions, to join this radical view of human community, but never should it be forced on others through government, policy, or violence.

so here in nicaragua? well, i wouldn't say that i'm living out the one man revolution, but slowly, day by day, i am trying to transform the way in which i relate to god and to those i meet every day. it is oh so slow to the point that i am usually a failure but i have others to help and support me with good food and good music. and we remember to support each other and a life of service to others rather than service to oneself is a revolutionary way of being in and of itself. so pray for us as we continue our journey deeper into the spirituality of jesus and share our time and commitment to a radically different world that assumes and invites justice, sharing, community, and love rather than inequality, selfishness, individuality, and indifference. peace to you.

james

http://www.catholicworker.com/ah_jh.htm

well so it turns out

that i'm actually not that good at keeping any sort of regular updates on my life. there are a variety of things that affect this. one is that we lose electricity often at my school. another is that i sometimes come to school using a different bus that charges less but leaves later cutting out my time in the morning to update. and thirdly, no offense to those of you that check for updates, i just always seem to have something that i would rather be doing at the moment when i think about updating... so its something i still feel is important but i'm gonna have to come up with some ways of scheduling into my life a time when i just do it. there.

what's been going on lately? well not much different stuff for me. i teach 5 days a week. i grade papers, i plan classes, and i try to convince students that their low grades aren't really my fault since they don't study, or pay attention, or come to class that often. one of my recent challenges is realizing that with the majority of my students i truly value their own education more than they do. today one of my students told me he wouldn't go to school if we didn't have soccer. and if we didn't offer any classes? he'd still come to play soccer. of course. so now at least i see that my english classes are just getting in the way of his soccer time. that's always a good feeling.

i have learned how to ride a motorcycle. (don't tell my mom)... (if you are my mom and are reading this, don't worry too much, i wear a helmet) i don't ride it for any real purpose. i take it 20 minutes one way and then 20 minutes back. wasting probably a dollars worth of gas, maybe less. and i think to myself, how can i simultaneously work against the destructive tendencies of humans to manipulate the world around us to our own detriment through hunger and injustices etc. while at the same time enjoy so much the feeling of getting on a motorcycle, and just going. i guess thats another way in which i'm a hypocrite. so be it.

the other day a man came to our house. said his name was henry jr. call me junior. he was looking for some money. spoke perfect english. had been deported from the states for being an illegal a while back. has aids. so does his wife. so does his 2 year old daughter. he told me he had cheated on his wife, gotten aids, passed it on to his wife and now their daughter has it. he needed some money for the medicine for his daughter... and maybe a few diapers also. we walked down to the pharmacy and i got him the stuff he needed. he might have been lying to me, but i tend to trust people who speak english more (prejudiced) and he bought 3 pampers also. i ran into him later that day near a gas station where i was waiting for a bus. he sat with me for a while, told me it wasn't safe where i was and asked me for a little more money... i gave him 10 cords, about 55 cents. i'm so hesitant to give out money and i used to be a lot less so. i think its the budget that we are on here, but i could just take out my own money from the bank to give to people who ask. and then some people say we shouldn't give out money at all. people point to systems that create these injustices and say to work against them or say we are supporting a lifestyle of begging and handouts. to that i simply respond, well, all my life has been a handout from god to my parents to my education to my time here in nicaragua. but when we give money to someone of our own class its called a donation, and to a lower class a handout. and as far as the systems of injustice, i agree entirely, but lets not pretend that we're all revolutionaries overthrowing the current system and that that gives us a free pass to ignore the immediate needs of our brothers and sisters right there... if we start ignoring those around us we will forget why and for whom the injustices need to be confronted.

this weekend we might go to a solidarity conference. they charge 175 dollars for americans to go. we are going to try to sneak in. solidarity is just too expensive these days.

i hope you too are living a life worthy of reflection and that you are sharing yourself with those around you. let me know how life is going in your area.

j

oops

for those of you that have checked this recently, i'm sorry that i haven't been able to update it more often. today is the first day that my school has electricty since about 2 weeks ago, and updating from the school is usually the easiest. so what has been going on?

well, i've been working a little bit on the farm for the last several weeks, only about 2 hours a week, but i really enjoy it. for those of you that know me, you know that i used to live on a farm and never really liked it, but since reading more catholic worker writings and thinking more about the way in which things are produced and consumed in the world, i guess my catholic guilt got to me, being just a consumer of food and not a producer... so i dig holes and plant seeds. literally. and it is nice.

classes have been getting easier and i have been getting better at teaching, but even so, i am realizing that i don't really like teaching english all that much. its an interesting place to be in, because i was thinking that if i got better, it would be easier and i would enjoy it more, but really as i get better, plan better classes, and commit myself more to my classes, i find myself still not enjoying it. maybe it has to do with my ideas about fabretto as an organization, or teaching english in general, or how i see myself now compared to how i used to understand my role in the world. there are a lot of things i struggle with, including living off of the money of other people, not feeling like i'm actually working in general, or working towards justice specifically, feeling like i need to live more radically the good news of jesus and life in sharing communities, feeling like i need to be denouncing more injustices, wondering how it could ever be possible to build the kingdom of god here in the world and especially here in nicaragua when i'm unclear on my role here as a human being. normal things.

my mom's birthday is coming up and that gets me reflecting on the gift of life and all my parents did for me, struggling to give life to their children.

and there are so many mothers that struggle here, so much, every day, to give life to their children, and they pray for changes so that their kids can go to school and raise healthy grandchildren and learn to sing and dance and play and work. and who hears these cries of the poor?

junetime

dear friends and lovers,

blogging is not my specialty. your forgiveness is appreciated.

sometimes when i am sitting down before i go to sleep, breathing in and out and trying to calm myself so that i can have a little prayer time with god, i start thinking about my classes and the students i teach. they sneak in and i know i'm supposed to acknowledge them and let them go, but they are pretty demanding. and i imagine conversations i will have with certain individuals that i think will help them value education or better understand the grammer dealing with "there is" and on and on. and i stop and say to god, well, its obvious that my students are still on my mind and in my heart so i will try to offer them to you, these thoughts and hopes and potentials. i do this because the more time i'm here, the deeper my understanding is of my own personal helplessness. its just so big and theres just so much. there is the wars and violent conflicts going on all over the world, including iraq and afghanistan. there are the transnational corporations using slave labor in their factories in order to increase wealth and feed consumerism. there is the sex trade that takes advantage of young women and girls--vulnerable because of situations of injustice created by aggressive world capitalism destroying communities and thus individuals. and then once, 4 weeks ago i was standing on a beach staring up at the stars and everything seemed so small. not just myself but all of this. small and pointless. then a few days later at an orphanage i stared into the eyes of a 2 year old girl crying for attention and it all seemed so huge. filled with a world of hope and potential for life and love. and somewhere in the middle of nothingness and everythingness i find myself. i see that i can change nothing around me and am powerless to change even myself. and then i sit. i sit in quietness and ask god to keep driving, and pushing, and burning, and deepening. and maybe someday i will be able to find a balance between nothingness and everythingness and it will exist somewhere close to hereness and nowness and in that place i will be empty of myself to function as a channel of the love of BEING. and as for now i laugh and wonder and work and listen and listen and wait. and i hold my hand out, knowing i am powerless and helpless to take hold of my desires but knowing that simply holding my hand out is where i am right now.

james

mother's day

i've been meaning to update for a while now. i had many topics to cover. one that i still would like to share about at a later date is taking the time to discover our attachments that we think will bring us happiness. but another time. now it is raining. the rainy season has begun. around the same time as the rainy season comes mother's day in nicaragua. and today i had one of those "reality checks" as they are called. it won't be the last as i continually wake up to the world around me. in class today many of the students were not prepared for the english test, so throwing all convention to the wind i offered to put of the test and have a day where we make mother's day cards. it was a great idea. it went great with the first class. okay with the second class. the thrid group of students i had, though, were a little more restless and unsettled about the whole thing. i couldn't put my finger on it. rebecca, a young girl-- 15 years old, was impatiently asking me to draw a heart for her. rebecca is normally one of my best students. strangely enthusiastic and patient with the other students. so it struck me as strange that she was so agitated. i also made the classic teacher mistake of assuming that our best students need less attention than those that are struggling more. so i drew the heart and when she asked me to do something else for her i said i would come back and went to the 15 other students calling out "mr. meinert" "teacher" "come here." rebecca got impatient and left the room while i was asking another student--telling me he "couldn't do it" if he didn't think that his mother was worth the time and effort to draw a card for. riger, rebeccas daily teacher, came up to me. he sits in the english classes and participates regularly. he said to me, "james... the thing is... rebecca doesn't have a mom. she died a while ago. so you gotta take it a little easier on her. and also, carlos (another student) doesn't have a mom either" oh. damnit. i did it again. i got sucked in to caring about assignments and english and accomplishing things instead of enjoying class and being open to students to talking and listening and all those real reasons we exist as people. i know i wasn't created in the image of god to teach english but to be, to love, to listen. and so i sat in one of the desks as rebeca came back to the classroom with a poem she had printed off in spanish. she wanted to color it. of course you can. i sat there as a student played music on the stereo, another student danced, another swept my room because he offered, and rebecca and carlos finished their mother's day cards--two of the most beautiful cards with honesty, openness, and time put into them--and the beauty of it all weighed on me. E.B. White, author of charlotte's web, wrote for the New Yorker and wrote that it is not joy, but beauty that makes us cry. it is the "unexpected gift of sadness--of some bright thing unresolved, of some formless wish unattained and unattainable." and that was how i felt. class had ended and students were coming in and out. i stood up slowly. walked out. and it started to rain. happy mother's day.

cusmapa

so, about two weeks ago i got the chance to go to cusmapa. its a small village up in the mountains of nicaragua. on monday night i was sitting around with the community eating dinner when callie (another fabretto volunteer) stopped by our house. she was in managua with a woman whose daughter needs surgery so that she can walk, and so i decided to head up to cusmapa with her tuesday through friday. its about an 8 hour trip but well worth it. at night i slept with 3 blankets on. that alone makes it worth it to me. we didn't do much while there, but it was a very nice time to see another part of nicaragua, another fabretto school, and another american teaching english. it really is a challenge and i think i just don't know how to teach well, much less teach a foreign language. we'll see. the most amazing parts of our time in cusmapa were watching sunsets from mountainous rocks, walking around this little village and saying hello to all the people, listening to the very talented choir practice, making-hand making- our own scrabble board and playing scrabble twice (i lost both times. damnit) we also visited their lake. which a nicaraguan commented that it was a tourist attraction. this little dirty pond was the furthest thing from a tourist attraction one could imagine, as that it is 8 hours from an airport and one has to ride busses and walk for another 30 min. just to see this little pond. oh nicaraguans. all in all it was a very good time for reflection and focus on myself and my time here. i hope you all have time for silence and solitude to be.

james

where is james

here i am!

well, i have been gone for some time now. quickly i will tell you since my space bar barely works making typing a pain. i will update more soonly. i spent 4 days in northern nicaragua where there is a friend and another fabretto school, it was good to see both. then our community went to northern honduras for a week long retreat. it was really a treat with time on the beach and time camping. well spent. back in the neighborhood i had more special time yesterday. then i saw a man on our street prepping a crack pipe. welp, the realities of living in managua come back full force. i will give more reflections on the time in cusmapa and honduras soon... maybe later today. in case you check twice a day. love!

james